ABUJA/LAGOS: MTN Group’s plan to list its Nigerian unit in an initial public offering this year is under threat after the central bank ordered the South African telecoms giant to hand over $8.1 billion allegedly sent abroad illegally, sources said. Nigeria’s central bank alleged that MTN used improperly issued certificates to transfer funds out of Nigeria after the telecoms giant converted shareholder loans in its Nigerian unit to preference shares in 2007. MTN denies the allegations.
The monetary authority said MTN’s banks had failed to verify that the telecoms group had met all the country’s foreign exchange regulations.
The money is more than half of MTN’s market capitalisation. MTN Group shares plunged as much as 25 per cent to a nine year low on Thursday after the allegations were levelled by Nigeria’s financial regulator.
Africa’s biggest telecoms company had previously said it aimed to list this year in its largest market, the continent’s most populous country of 190 million people, as it seeks to expand mobile services to boost margins and access new revenue streams.
But three people familiar with the matter said the scale of the central bank’s demand affects the market conditions, casting into doubt the likelihood that the process would be completed by the end of the year, if at all. — Reuters
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